It is, on the face of it, extraordinary that at a time when communist forces have been achieving one spectacular victory after another in South Viet Nam and Cambodia, Japanese officials, leading commentators and editors should be preoccupied with the negotiations with China on the proposed treaty of peace and friendship as much as with the historic changes in South-East Asia. But they are not altogether unjustified in attaching so much importance to the terms of the treaty. For at issue is the orientation of Japan’s foreign policy in the ’seventies and beyond.
The crux of the matter is the anti-hegemony clause which Peking has inserted in its draft and which Tokyo has kept out of its. All this has nothing to do with China’s old and justified grievances against Japan. Peking no longer entertains the fear that Tokyo can, in concert with Washington, ever again seek to establish its hegemony in the area. According to the Chinese, while US imperialism is on the decline and in retreat, the Soviet Union is rapidly expanding its military presence in the Asia-Pacific region and is bound to seek hegemony there unless effective resistance is organised against it. Thus, whether or not the Chinese leadership admits it in so many words, it is in effect trying to involve Japan in its struggle against the Soviet Union.
Even this may not be the end of the matter. Indeed, it cannot be ruled out that the Chinese leadership expects to sign a similar treaty with the United States if and when the Formosa issue is out of the way. It may even be calculating that as it is, America will be a party to the proposed arrangement by virtue of its security treaty with Japan. That may in fact explain why Mr Chou En-lai has more than once gone out of his way to support the Japan-US alliance.
Embarrassed
Tokyo is embarrassed by the Chinese demand because there is considerable support for it within Japan itself. But despite the presence of a strong anti-Soviet and a pro-China sentiment in the country the government seems determined not to accept the anti-hegemony clause and it appears to enjoy the tacit support of Washington in this regard. Right now the latter, too, does not wish to be drawn into the Chinese scheme because it expects the Soviet Union to cooperate with it in ensuring some measure of stability in Europe and West Asia. But the mood both in Washington and Tokyo can change if the Russians press the advantage they may believe they have gained in South-East Asia as a result of the communist victories in Indochina, and in West Asia as a consequence of Mr. Kissinger’s failure at least for the time being to persuade the Israelis to be more forthcoming in their offer to Egypt.
It is not quite clear when the Chinese gave final shape to their present strategy, though it is possible that they began toying with the idea of an anti-Soviet front in the wake of the armed clashes on the Ussuri in early 1969 which were followed by Mr. Brezhnev’s call for a collective security system in Asia. In any event, by the time Mr. Nixon visited China in February 1972, Peking was ready with its strategy. Thus it was at its instance that the Shanghai communiqué on February 27, 1972, said: “Neither side should seek hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region and each is opposed to efforts by any other country or group of countries to establish such hegemony.”
This set the pattern for the Chou-Tanaka joint statement of September 30, 1972, whereby China and Japan decided to establish diplomatic relations. The formulation was repeated word for word. This is another source of embarrassment for the Japanese because they cannot explain convincingly their reluctance to include the same formulation in the proposed treaty. All they say publicly is that a treaty is different from a joint statement.
Reversed
To leave no scope for doubt regarding his purpose in getting this clause inserted in the two communiqués, Mr. Chou En-lai soon afterwards reversed his stand on the twin issues of Japan’s rearmament programme and its defence treaty with the United States. He said: “Since Japan needed US nuclear protection it would be ‘unavoidable’ for Japan to keep the pact vis-a-vis the Soviet Union… China’s nuclear arms are strictly for defence purposes and for this reason it would be no use for Japan to try to replace the United States with China for nuclear protection.”
Read in the context of the indirect Chinese admission that the USA had played a role in restraining the Soviet Union from carrying out a pre-emptive nuclear attack on their country in the wake of the Ussuri clashes in the spring of 1969, this statement came as close to advocating an informal tripartite security arrangement as one could expect from the Chinese Prime Minister before a final disposal of the contentious Formosa issue.
Since then there has been no change in the Chinese policy towards Japan, Peking has studiously cultivated Tokyo. The former has not only acquiesced in the latter’s trade with and investments in Formosa but also started supplying oil to it. China made a modest beginning with one million tonnes in 1973 but raised the amount to about four million tonnes in 1974 and is expected to increase it to around eight million tonnes this year. This has encouraged the Japanese to believe that by 1980 China would be supplying them as much oil – 25 million tonnes – as Russia promises them from the Tyumen oilfields in return for massive investment.
This is, however, only one of the factors which account for a sharp decline in Japan’s interest in the development of the Tyumen oilfields. Japanese officials say that they cannot take the Soviet estimates of the reserves at their face value. They have also been upset over the Soviet decision to modify the terms. Moscow first offered to supply 25 million tonnes of oil a year in the beginning and then raise it to 40 million tonnes a year. It now promises 25 million tonnes a year at the peak. In the spring of 1974, it sprang another surprise on Tokyo. It presented a new proposal for building a second 3,200- km long Siberian railway line between Irkutsk and Sovetskaya Gavan as a substitute for the pipeline for delivering oil to Japan.
The Chinese, of course, regard the proposed railway line as a threat to their security in that it will substantially increase Russia’s capacity to reinforce and supply its forces along their border. But the more pertinent point is that a number of Japanese military experts regard the proposed railway line as a threat to their own country and the United States as well. That is the main reason why Tokyo has virtually ended its interest in the Tyumen oilfields, though it explains its decision in terms of the US reluctance to participate in the project.
Japanese officials are also not slow to recall that in 1945 the Soviet Union violated the non- aggression pact to attack them in Manchuria and Korea and that it continues to hold the four northern islands which it seized from them towards the end of the Second World War. Clearly they attach considerable value to these territories. The islands are a traditional Japanese fishing ground and they are also close to Japan’s northern territory of Hokkaido. Etorofu is perhaps of special importance in that it was a secret assembly base for the Japanese task force which attacked Pearl Harbour in 1941 and it now houses a Soviet air base, a listening post for US underground tests in the Aleutians and a fortified naval post.
Occupation
The Russians are well aware that their continued occupation of the islands reinforces an existing anti-Soviet and pro-China sentiment in Japan. But they have obviously decided to maintain a tough stance on the territorial issue. Japanese officials say that this is so because the Russians do not wish to reopen any territorial question which according to them was settled by the Second World War. But something else by way of Soviet appreciation of Japanese psychology may also be involved. Experts in Moscow may well have concluded that a display of toughness impresses the Japanese. It is also possible the Kremlin is waiting for a package deal which Tokyo has so far been reluctant to offer. It may be recalled that the first detailed public elucidation of Mr. Brezhnev’s concept of Asian collective security was offered in Tokyo by a visiting professor in 1970.
On this reckoning, it will not be an exaggeration to conclude that Peking and Moscow are engaged in a contest for the allegiance of Japan with the former adopting a soft line and the latter a hard one. Tokyo is naturally reluctant to be drawn into their quarrels. But the fact of the struggle is itself an eloquent commentary on the retreat of US power. Who would have thought such a contest was possible a decade ago?
(Concluded)
The Times of India, 1 May 1975